Just three races in to the 2014 Formula 1 world championship season Ferrari and team boss Stefano Domenicali have parted ways.

The end for Domenicali came quickly, but not unexpectedly, on Tuesday after neither Fernando Alonso nor Kimi Raikkonen had podium finishes at Australia, Malaysia or Bahrain.

Now the speculation begins about the possibility of Domenicali signing on as super boss at the 2015 F-1 entry of American Gene Haas.

Haas, granted an F-1 licence last week, could hit the ground running with Domenicali at the helm.

In a statement released by Ferrari, Domenicali took full responsibility for the team’s lack of top results this season, and in fact, for the past several seasons.

The last time Ferrari won a world championship was with Raikkonen behind the wheel in 2007, the year before Domenicali took control of the team.

“There are special moments that come along in everyone’s professional life, when one needs courage to take difficult and agonizing decisions,” Domenicali said Tuesday of his decision to quit.

“It is time for a significant change. As the boss, I take responsibility for our current situation.

“This decision has been taken with the aim of doing something to shake things up for the good of this group.

“I hope Ferrari will be back where it deserves to be very soon. I only regret that we have been unable to harvest what we worked so hard to sow in recent years.”

Domenicali, got a glowing tribute from Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, but it was evident the Italian team’s management was applying pressure on him to make this happen.

“I thank Stefano Domenicali, not only for his constant dedication and effort, but also for the great sense of responsibility he has shown, even today, in always putting the interests of Ferrari above all else,” di Montezemolo said.

INDYCAR QUESTIONS

I must admit I can’t get my head around the qualifying rules in the Verizon IndyCar Series.

There was Mike Conway who, by the way, is a very talented and classy driver, picking up his second win at the Toyota Grant Prix of Long Beach on Sunday for the single-car Ed Carpenter Racing team.

Conway started 17th on the grid after failing to move out of the first-round qualifying in the No. 20 Honda on Saturday.

He made his way through the field on Sunday until he was behind only Scott Dixon with a handful of laps left.

When Dixon stopped for a splash of fuel, the victory was handed to ECR and Conway.

What bothers me is that the team got to the front, partially because it had an extra set of the softer, and faster, red Firestone tires to use in the race.

Top qualifying teams like Andretti Autosport used up their first set of reds and much of their second set in the second and third rounds of knock-out qualifying and ended up effectively being penalized for being fast while ECR and Conway were effectively rewarded for being slow.

Does this make any sense to anyone?

Even Conway commented on the advantage that was handed to him and the ECR team.

“We had a game plan with our Firestone tires to use the black tires (primary and hard) first and then follow up with two sets of red sticker tires during our pit stops,” he said. “The car felt good with the red tires for our final two stints.”

I bet it did.

FINISH LINES

To absolutely no one’s surprise, the FIA — F-1’s ruling body — has rejected the Red Bull Formula 1 team’s appeal against Daniel Ricciardo’s disqualification from the Australian Grand Prix for going over the amount of fuel being pumped into his race car. ... While Alex Tagliani will be attempting to qualify the No. 68 Dallara/Honda IndyCar for Sarah Fisher-Hartman Racing for the Indianapolis 500 next month, Edmonton’s Stefan Rzadzinski will take over the No. 18 Team EpiPen/Dicom Express Dodge Challenger Tagliani Autosport entry at the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series season opener at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park for the Victoria Day Weekend Speedfest May 16-18 ... Two-time NCTS champion Andrew Ranger, of Roxton Pond, Que., has confirmed he will race in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chevrolet Silverado 250 on Labour Day weekend at the CTMP Mosport Grand Prix road course ... Conway became the sixth driver to win at Long Beach more than once, joining Mario Andretti, Al Unser Jr., Paul Tracy, Alex Zanardi and Sebastien Bourdais ... IndyCar rookies Jack Hawksworth, Carlos Munoz and Mikhail Aleshin will get their first laps at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend when teams test at the 1.5-mile oval ... Mercedes’ technical director Bob Bell will leave the Formula 1 team at the end of this season ... Forgotten in the hoopla of Conway’s win at Long Beach was Scott Pruett extending his sports cars racing record to 58 victories, driving the Chop Ganassi Racing No. 01 Ford EcoBoost/Riley in the TUDOR United Spot5sCar Championship, also at Long Beach. In the same race Corvette Racing won in GT Le Mans with Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen leading all but two laps to give the Corvette C7.R its first win in just its third start.